If you have kids (and even maybe if you don’t), Disney World and the various Disneyland parks are great destinations to make memories. I love traveling the world, don’t get me wrong. But, our kids love Disney and we’ve been back repeatedly.
The other thing that Disney is really good at is emptying your bank account. It’s not even that subtle, considering a one-day park ticket to Disney World will cost you over $100 unless you’ve got a discount (which are few and far between).
There are a number of strategies on how to save money. Buying discounted Disney gift cards is one of them, and there are a number of ways to do it. One of the simplest is buying them at Sam’s Club. When I was in Sam’s Club recently (only briefly cheating on my main brand, Costco, for some work research) I found a 3-pack of $50 Disney gift cards for $142. That’s roughly 5% off. Not a big discount, but beats a sharp stick in the eye, especially for a family of 4 or larger.
There are more aggressive strategies, like this one outlined by Kendra at Points & Pixie Dust. This is a great reminder that I need to get off my butt and do more of this type of thing.
Anyway, I decided since I was standing there in Sam’s Club and needed to buy Disney tickets for an upcoming trip. I grabbed a stack of 3-packs to buy our tickets and headed home to place our ticket order online. As an aside, if you’re a AAA member, they offer a discount on multi-day tickets for longer than 2 days. My recollection is that discount is the same or larger than Sam’s Club, but we were only planning two days on our Disney trip.
It didn’t take long to figure out that I couldn’t use all of those $50 gift cards on one ticket transaction of ~$800. When buying tickets from the Disney website, you’re It took me a bit of research before I found an easy way to combine smaller gift cards into one bigger one. Here’s what you do:
Navigate to Disneygiftcard.com:
Hover over the “Manage Cards” menu and select “Transfer Balance”. You’ll need to create an account, which only takes a minute.
Now, you’re able to add gift cards one at a time. Once you’ve loaded your first two cards, you’ll see the option to “Transfer Balance” below any card other than your primary one. The system tells you what the balance will be on your primary card once you approve the transfer.
Click the green “Transfer Balance” button and, voila:
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The system has a limit of 5 cards per account to track at one time, so once you transfer the balance from one card to another, you’ll need to delete the card with the zero balance.
30 seconds after I transferred my last card I mashed the button to buy Disney tickets using my primary gift card. It worked fine. I wished I had scored some half price gift cards like Kendra, but I’m still okay with ~$50 savings for 5 minutes of work.
Tuck this one in your Disney file for future use if you’re able to score discounted gift cards. I’ll do my best to report on good Disney gift card deals I find.
The post How To Transfer Disney Gift Cards To Save Money On Disney Tickets was published first on Pizza in Motion
13 comments
First off, that needle in the eyeball isn’t as bad as it sounds.
But thanks for the tip. Will make use of it.
The reason AAA offers discounts on tickets of 3 or more days (more than 2 days as you said) is that’s the point to which Disney pays out commissions on ticket sales.
Tenmoc, I didn’t know that was why AAA offered the discount. Interesting to know.
First off, that needle in the eyeball isn’t as bad as it sounds.
But thanks for the tip. Will make use of it.
The reason AAA offers discounts on tickets of 3 or more days (more than 2 days as you said) is that’s the point to which Disney pays out commissions on ticket sales.
Tenmoc, I didn’t know that was why AAA offered the discount. Interesting to know.
If you did not know this already you can use discounted your consolidated Disney GCs to pay DVC dues.
perryplatypus, I do know that. It was a fellow FTer (Win S.) who taught me that about 5 years ago. It’s why I should make more effort to chase down discounted gift cards.
If you did not know this already you can use discounted your consolidated Disney GCs to pay DVC dues.
perryplatypus, I do know that. It was a fellow FTer (Win S.) who taught me that about 5 years ago. It’s why I should make more effort to chase down discounted gift cards.
Edward, that’s a handy tip. Thanks for that! Wish I had thought of that before our trip this summer…
Carrick, there are some great tips on how to save money at Disney. I’m thinking about a section of the website dedicated to Disney tips that I use.
Edward, that’s a handy tip. Thanks for that! Wish I had thought of that before our trip this summer…
Carrick, there are some great tips on how to save money at Disney. I’m thinking about a section of the website dedicated to Disney tips that I use.
Your suggestion on merging gift cards (can load up to $1,000 on one) was SO helpful. Last time I had to torture the hapless Disney store lady for 45 minutes as she swiped 37 cards for my park tickets. This time, I didn’t even have to leave the house. Thank you!